Climate leadership

National Park Authorities are leaders in meeting the challenges of the climate emergency.

We are developing a climate action programme for National Parks in England.

We will work together, and at scale, to achieve rapid action towards net zero in National Park

We want to reach net zero in the fastest possible time.

➡️ Enhanced understanding of emissions and net zero with nature embedded…

➡️ Leading to rapid, innovative and well-targeted actions…

➡️ Resulting in significantly lower emissions and more resilient National Parks.

Our climate action plan outlines how we will rapidly escalate to tackle the climate emergency.

We will:

  • Establish National Park Authorities as leaders in this area.

  • Increases awareness and understanding of the impacts of climate change.

  • Take action on reducing emissions and adapting to climate change at a landscape scale, making National Park Authorites examples of best practice

  • Demonstrate how a rapid response and transition to low-carbon living can be achieved.

  • Promote the principle of achieving ‘Net Zero with Nature’.

  • Work collectively, and with constituent authorities, towards becoming ‘Net zero’ by 2040.

  • Promote nature-based solutions and supports behaviour change beyond our boundaries.

  • Lead by example, through achieving ‘net zero’ NPAs by 2030 wherever practicable.

We will monitor progress against this plan and undertake a review of our progress each year.

We will do this by:

  • Establishing a Carbon Budget baseline for all ten National Parks in England, and a monitoring framework to report by to show our progress.

  • Developing a clear strategy and delivery plan, and ensuring each National Park has a dedicated Climate Change Officer.

  • Developing a communications plan for the overall progamme to tell people about our work and our progress.

We are more than the sum of our parts

Working at a landscape scale is a strength of National Park Authorities.

We don’t own much of the land, only around 10%, so we regularly work with farmers, landowners, the community and many other bodies across the entirety of National Parks.

With a breadth of collective expertise - ecologists, planners, environmental scientists and rangers - we know our landscapes in depth, and we know the impacts that climate change and biodiversity loss are having on them. This gives our local partnerships many of the answers to nature recovery.